OGWar

Update page 2.

Well I've been stockpiling pictures here and there since February of 2015. Figured it was time to finally start a build log and document some of this crap. What started as a budget turbo 1.6 weekend toy has become a fully built 1.8 turbo swap. It's been quite a journey in the last 15 months. Hopefully it helps others or gives you some motivation to get out and turn a wrench. I know that I can always use some extra motivation. I'm going to be updating in chunks, because if my post timed out and I lost my progress I'd have to chuck my laptop. And I like my laptop. I'm pretty detail oriented, but I'll try to skim the surface in areas that I'd assume would bore the crap out of you. But if it's referenced, I probably have pictures of it. If you need some input, hit me up and I'd be glad to help. Sorry about the large pics initially, i resized them a bit down the page.

I'll try to update on the regular from this point forward, but if you're up for a trip through time...here's the story of my car:

I never considered a Miata before. Ever. It seemed like when the idea for a new project came up, it just wasn't a platform that I ever thought of. In January or February of 2015, I can't remember, I saw a turbo 1.6 Miata pop up on a local forum and the starting price seemed pretty good. When I see something that intrigues me, I typically jump on the phone with the bank and within a few hours have funds in hand. I don't like getting sniped lol.

Story on the car was pretty straightforward; 1992 Mariner with a 1.6 with 120k on it. Had a greddy kit on it with the greddy "downpipe" (yeah right) eventually sizing up to a 2.5" exhaust. Running a vortech FMU, 1.8L injectors, AEM wideband, and the CAS retarded 6 deg. FMIC setup with a turbo xs and a mbc. Car had been boosted at 7 psi for 3 years and besides a noisy transmission issue, seller claimed no issues and it seemed like it. Car was running raceland ultimos, some xxr 0 offset wheels.

These are the pics I had to go off of:








Can't possibly miss on this right? So we snagged a trailer, coffee, and hit the road for a 3 hour trip to the southeast corner of the state. Day was absolutely freezing, like single digits without the wind factor. Got to the guys house and he had the garage door open and the car sitting inside. Nice guy, and after a brief discussion we took it for a short drive. There was snow in his neighborhood, the car had barely any clearance, and the tires sucked. But once on the main road, I had the chance to stretch her a bit. Car pulled good, sounded nice, and i noticed the trans issue on deceleration. Got back to the house, looked the car over more, and we agreed on a price we could both live with. Loaded the car up and prepped to snag some grub before heading home.







Got the car home and unloaded. We had to get creative for both the loading and unloading given the ride height, but we made it work. Ended up putting my hand right through the rear plastic window because the trailer ride home turned it into a brittle piece of turd. Well, should have seen that one coming. Got her home and kicked my shoes off after a very long day of white knuckle winter trailer driving.

OGWar

Next step was to wait for a day to get her washed up. It was NASTY as you'd imagine from the salt ride home. The car had good bones, no rust, and a clean interior. Good starting points and pretty stinking rare in the northeast.










Added some bling yo. I think I got these on a listing error on eBay, but the improvement over stock was substantial so I wasn't complaining.

OGWar

The starting point. Note the ground down spot underhood and the pinched intercooler piping for clearance haha. Hey, whatever gets it on the track I suppose.





Had this diecut laying around so I put it on. I'm sad to admit it stayed around for a while before I pulled it. Not one of my prouder moments.



Stock steering wheel was HORRID. Next step was a nice, clean NRG with a hub and a quick release. It makes a difference choosing the RIGHT components that fit the car vs. trying to grab something that's flashy and trendy. But hey, maybe I'm just boring. The feel of it is lightyears better, absolutely no comparison to stock.

OGWar

Turbo inlet tore, and caused my AFR's to run all over the place. Fast forward to new couplers, eliminated some stuff in the bay, and redid all the piping in black. Much better.

OGWar

I'll be adding a bunch more tonight when I get home and out of this archaic bandwidth I'm sitting in.

OGWar

Well, when the snow finally melted which takes the better part of the spring it seems, I was able to spend some time on the exterior needs.

Car was missing the grill insert so I improvised. I don't remember where I bought this or what it was, but it works great. Epoxy, however, did not. Use zipties, trust me.






Replaced the broken driver mirror, because well seeing is kind of important.



Polished it up. Liquid Glass is no joke.







Calipers cleaned up and painted

OGWar

Had a leak from the valve cover gasket. Took the time to install some fresh plugs, clean up the valve cover and inspect the head. Everything looked good for 3 years of boost.









Much Better.

OGWar

Here's a picture of a chunk of concrete. Why a picture of a chunk of concrete you ask?



Because I found it here when putting in a new fuel filter. I can't make this crap up.



Installed a GV style rear trunk spoiler



Then hit the road and spent the weekend at GridLife in Michigan. Got a chance to meet Matt Farah from TST, super cool dude in person.







Weekend was fun, except the weather sucked and it rained all weekend. I recommend checking these events out, there's one at Road Atlanta this year too. Even with the weather, still had a blast. Until about 30 miles from home when I lost all clutch modulation. Slave died on me. Was going to change it at the gas station but ended up using a free AAA tow and getting her home. Driver was cool, so that's a plus.







Straightforward job. Helps having a second person when bleeding the lines though.

OGWar

Got sick of the black/polish look really fast, not my style. Wheels weren't worth powdercoating so i deferred to everyone's favorite; Plastidip. But just straight black wasn't going to cut it, so i made sure to include one party wheel. I can't believe how many compliments I got on this look. I ended up keeping it all season haha.







Changed all fluids out with Motul synthetics.



Then took my $3 eBay german goggles and went to make sure everything was "adequate" by spinning her around a bit. Best $3 ever spent for when the tops down tbh. They're so ridiculous it just kind of works somehow.

OGWar

Did my best to eliminate and tuck as much as i could to clean up the bay.



Had my opportunity for my first (and second) autoX experience during the tail end of the 2015 season. First day out, I ended up improving my time every run and ended up taking home a trophy mug. Disclaimer** I was the only one in my class, but hey who's counting. No cones hit and my times were getting pretty competitive. I had an absolute blast and my cousin who i had with me did as well.











This picture is significant because it's the final time I had the car out during the 2015 season. At this point, I was planning on simply pulling the 1.6 to freshen up some seals and getting a better downpipe and prepping for a bit more boost.

OGWar

Like I said, my plan was to retain the 1.6 platform and just make some improvements for a bit more power. Compression on the motor was very strong across the board, but with winter coming, I figured I should pull it to freshen up some seals, doing a timing belt, etc. The routine stuff. Also, I still hadn't figured out where the trans noise was coming from but it survived about 20 passes on an autocross course so it had definitely served it's purpose if its time had come to die.

My performance improvements that I planned were a bigger downpipe, megasquirt pnp2, more fuel, and about 15 psi. So I didn't waste any time getting the car on stands and started stripping both a/c and power steering because I didn't want them anymore and I wanted to shave the weight and free up some more bay space.

OGWar

So the parts stockpiling started, and so did the mentality of "well, since I'm already in there....." that would plague me throughout the rest of this build. Started with a Mishimoto X line 3 row, some ARP headstuds, new water pump, and a GTX pcv upgrade. Cat was already purchased before.





Well then I figured since I was already going to have the car down, why not source a Torsen II 4.10 LSD to replace the ticking time bomb factory vlsd my car currently had. So I found one complete with driveshaft and axles and made the 4 hour round trip to snag it. Oh and it came with a spare trans too. Gains.



Well I figured I was home free now, when I started tearing the oem radiator out and the rest of the turbo components off to give myself some more room.



.....and found this nice surprise:





A friend of mine had a guy who was experienced with repairing cast, so he had a go at it. Not beautiful but would get the job done. Also put in brand new studs.







I'm including this picture of the factory exhaust piece for no other reason than its a total nightmare to remove if theres corrosion. You've been warned.





All of this time spent waiting on the manifold to come back gave me time to really assess my goals, time commitment and budget for this build.

What I began to realize, however was:
1. Goals are always changing
2. It's undoubtedly going to take way longer than I'm expecting since this is my first time going this deep
3. Budgets always get blown wide open

Realizing and coming to terms with these three things led me to making this decision:





That's right, the Greddy kit was an admirable performer but wasn't going to get me where I really wanted to go. At this point, I was thinking a custom manifold, full 3" exhaust, and turbo capable of flowing more on the top end. I was thinking 250whp on a conservative tune. And i was thinking this was all possible while relying on said tune to keep me safe and the motor internals stock. I had a friend who needed a turbo kit, so I made him a good deal on the setup and began to make my plan for a surprising but capable 1.6 setup.

Or so I thought...

Chilicharger665

iTrader: (2)

I enjoyed the read! Raise your ride height.

OGWar

Hey thanks, I have a lot more left to add to get this post caught up but it's kind of a tedious process.

Racelands are gone and so are the 0 offset wheels. I'm running a better, stiffer coilover and wider wheels with VENTUS rs3's. I'll get to that stuff, I promise haha.

OGWar

Just as I was beginning to assemble a parts pile for my Plan A, i saw a for sale ad pop up on Craigslist for a built 1.8L that was a much better starting point for where I wanted to go. I had never really considered going the 1.8 swap route, but from what I read and looked into it seemed like something I was willing to tackle. Motor was out of a '96 M edition with 120k. Freshened head with port n polish work on the intake and exhaust ports. Supertech pistons, manley rods, acl bearings. BEGI downpipe and a gt2560r. FMIC setup, an older MS1 pnp, and another torsen/axles/driveshaft setup along with a transmission. It was located about 6 hours from me, so we planned an overnight trip around it and went to get it.

Seems like the perfect story right? More to come on this motor setup later...

OGWar

Another deal popped up that I couldn't pass on, even though at the time it wasn't something anywhere near the top of my list. A guy local to me had a OEM Mariner hard top and rear finish panel. Took the time to clean it up and polish it. Cleaned some areas that probably hadn't seen any cleaning in over 20 years. Hard top fit great, and looking back now I can't believe I almost passed on it.

OGWar

It became clear that my tiny garage wasn't going to cut it. So i made arrangements to get it towed to a buddies house who was about to start a mild refresh on his e30. After a thankfully uneventful tow, we pushed the car into the garage and got both cars on stands. This would be the new home for this project and where it is (still) currently.

OGWar

Step one: get these and try to memorize them.



I pulled the valve cover because the wrinkle black had seen better days and I had a different look in mind. Head looked pretty good.



Cleaned and prepped both the valve cover and the rear diff carrier for sandblasting.

OGWar

Now that both were clean, it was time to get them primed, modified, and painted. Up first was the primer.





Some fresh hi-temp silver. Also replacing the breather valve and putting in poly bushings.



Prepping for exposed cam gears. All it takes is a steady hand a dremel. It can be done.







Choosing a color a little less traveled....but exactly what I was going for.







Just setting it on to take a look at the finished product.

OGWar

Fast forward a bit. Pulled the drivetrain out of the car. Found the culprit on what was making the noise in the trans, this clutch disc was SMOKED. I can't believe it took 12 autocross runs the last day out.